Reimagine the Future of Infrastructure

Recently, Bentley Systems presented a webinar entitled, “Using the Power of Digital Twins to Reimagine the Future of Infrastructure” at the EFCG Tech Leadership Conference online.

Presenters Steve Cockerell, Industry Marketing Director, Transportation, and Kat Flesh, Senior Director Transportation, both of Bentley Systems, spoke on their findings from working with some of Bentley’s most visionary users.

Kat Flesh, Bentley Senior Director Transportation

They provided an update on what has been achieved so far, and what is being planned by owners and supply chains of assets that support nearly every aspect of our lives today. For example, roads, rail and transit, bridges, water systems, and smart cities. Cockerell and Flesh also explored the innovative ideas that are shaping the infrastructure business for a better tomorrow.

Steve Cockerell, Bentley Industry Marketing Director, Transportation

“Population growth rates vary across different regions, but we’re still talking about 2 billion additional people on the planet in the next 20 to 30 years,” Cockerell said.  “The United Nations predicts that the future of the world’s population is urban. Today, over 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas, but by the middle of the century that number will go up to 68%. In America, the number is already 80%, and I think this will place a huge strain on our infrastructure assets. Most of the impact will be on our roads and railways as these networks are the only way to keep our cities and countries moving.”

The second trend discussed was the state of the environment, with carbon emissions the primary driver of climate change. “Our future needs to be more sustainable, and this has already been reflected in government, project, or organizational targets for carbon reduction or neutrality,” said Cockerell. “It is clear that transportation is a significant contributor (to climate change) and within that, road vehicles account for three-quarters of all CO₂ emissions, attributed to mostly passenger vehicles with freight accounting for the remainder. Rail, however, accounts for only 1 percent of harmful emissions.

In the UK where Cockerell is based, the government recently announced the equivalent of $1 billion of investment in rail. The announcement was part of a commitment to building back better after the coronavirus pandemic. It’s really aimed at boosting economic growth, creating new jobs, and new opportunities. Light rail is also considered a very environmentally sustainable transit option, and in the United States and Canada, Monitor Network claim that we are investing more in this area than any other country.

Cockerell notes that rail and transit is going to be key to a more sustainable future, but when asked the  question, “If 70% of harmful emissions can be traced to transportation, whose problem is it to solve?” Suggesting that it might be political, social and economic but, at the end of the day, it is our ‘engineering’ problem to solve. Bentley believes that digital technology can be further applied to tasks across the lifecycle of infrastructure assets, enabling smarter decisions that might help target project investment, optimize design, or enable the use of different materials or methods of construction.

In their report, McKinsey  & Company looks at how we can reimagine the future of, in this case, construction, to emerge stronger from the coronavirus. In the short term McKinsey advocates increased digitalization, remote working, and a greater reliance on BIM – advancing it to include 4D and 5D simulation to re-plan and reoptimize project schedules, but also digital twin solutions that can provide current and ongoing feedback and insight to the decision processes.

Longer term, they see the case for digital applications that are proven to increase productivity to become even stronger. Acceleration and automation across the design and construction phases, including increased use of off-site construction, where working in more easily controlled environments makes it easier to keep people safe and drives up quality.

“We work in an industry that is not unfamiliar with change of course. Over the past 30 years, the way we design, build, and operate our infrastructure has evolved along with how we are making our decisions and the outcomes they make possible,” said Cockerell.

“We saw the shifts from desktop to servers, to now where mobile solutions and the cloud are key elements of most organizations’ digital strategy. We have moved from 2D to CAD, from a reliance on drawings and reports to 3D and 4D modeling, which saw BIM standards and processes proven to deliver productivity and quality improvements.

“Our users have been advancing techniques to include 5D where cost and carbon calculations are an integral part of the decision-making process.” Cockerell suggests that, “Data is or soon will be your most valuable asset.” And that, “Digital twins will be the next digital disruption in our industry, all fueled by data we collect, create, and consume. Bentley’s digital twin capabilities are already enabling organizations to visually immerse teams in the decision-making process, running all manner of analytics to predict different outcomes, and importantly track and manage change not only on the projects we deliver, but also throughout an asset’s operational life. Bentley’s iTwin technology enables the federation of technology and deliverables of design with live or near time data screens from IoT connected devices and operations. These technologies connect that physical asset in the real world with its digital counterpart from conceptual stage through planning, design, engineering, construction, and, ultimately, operations and maintenance. It is data that is driving decisions, now.”

Kat Flesh talked about North American infrastructure challenges faced, and the opportunity to reimagine the next new normal. Bentley is part of the Coalition for Smarter Infrastructure Investments, actively working with Congress right now to encourage smarter infrastructure projects.

The group advocates for

• Seizing a once-in-a-generation opportunity
• Promoting equity, sustainability, and resilience
• Improving productivity, safety, delivery schedules and costs
• Leveling the playing field and ensuring America’s global competitiveness

Citing the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) 2021 report card, Flesh said that the U.S. is not making the necessary investments in infrastructure. The greatest need is roads. America’s roads are critical for moving people and goods. Over 40% of roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and while the need to repair aging/inferior infrastructure is recognized, the U.S. is still not investing in what ASCE calls the “backbone  of our economy.” Failure to act is costing every U.S. household $3,300 per year.

Roads get a D grade

• +43% of roads are in poor or mediocre condition
• $130 billion in extra repairs and operating costs per year
• Congestion costs every commuter $1,000 per year
• $435 billion backlog in repairing existing roads alone

The government of Malaysia is using a digital twin enabled by Bentley technology to optimize the delivery and asset performance on its Pan-Borneo Highway, while close to home, consulting engineer Foth, is reimagining the future of roads today on its project in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Molly Long, Lead Engineer at Foth, said their digital twin approach to the $38 million road corridor revitalization project improving flow of traffic, road safety, and bicycle access increased mobility, minimizing capital investment. “What we did was rebuild a 60-year-old, six lane U.S. highway into a four-lane, multipurpose thoroughfare,” Long said. “Proposed reconstruction consisted of six roundabouts and two signalized intersections. We created recreational trails, bike lanes, bump outs for bus stops, and improved our focus on safety for pedestrians and vehicles.”

The single BIM model became the foundation of the design that allowed a large number of Foth employees to work seamlessly throughout the design process from multiple locations. Comments from other Foth professionals included:

“Bentley applications allowed us to cut our design schedule in half. Additionally, we were able to save 1,600 hours of design time resulting in over $200,000 savings to Foth.”

“There was an 18% reduction in crashes and an 89% reduction in injury crashes, which is just amazing.”

“Our project cost was a total of about $38 million for all the phases of the project, and I think we calculated a $32 million ROI for the community.”

“To summarize, Bentley’s open applications allowed their team to coordinate modeling and reduce conflicts, and expedite design by an estimated 50%, saving over $ 500,000 in construction costs. The BIM model optimized data accessibility and increased the efficiency of Foth’s interactions with the public and stakeholders, which were significant, especially when considering the roundabouts that were being proposed.”

This innovative multimodal roadway design configuration is projected to realize for the owner over $32 million in savings for the owner over the next 25 years.

Rail gets a B, while Transit gets a D- Grade

In spite of freight rail and passenger rail being part of the same integrated system, and with that there are very similar challenges that each has to overcome, with one significant difference. While freight maintains a strong network through an average investment from shippers of $260,000 per mile, passenger rail requires government support. Currently, the lack of federal support has led to the current state of good repair backlog figure of $45.2 billion. This has significant knock-on to the level of service agencies are able to offer. For example, on the nation’s busiest passenger rail corridor, the North East Corridor, infrastructure-related issues caused 328,000 train-delay minutes, roughly the equivalent of 700 train trips from Boston to Washington, D.C.

For transit, the state of good repair backlog is nearly four times that of rail, and at $176 billion currently, the deficit is expected to grow to more than $250 billion by 2029. Meanwhile, agencies have also been suffering from declines in ridership, further compounded by COVID-19, with APTA reporting that at the beginning of the pandemic, stay at home orders caused some agencies to experience a 70% decline in passenger numbers. Failure to address passenger shortfall, services cut, trip delays and reliabilities create a downward spiral unless the future is reimagined.

Cockerell highlighted the UK’s High Speed 2 project, a new high-speed rail network that will run through London, Manchester, and Leeds to the north, and in doing so is expected to be the backbone of British transport in the future. The team at Skanska, Costain STRABAG JV were contracted to perform civil works on part of the line, running 230 kilometers from the north to the south, between London and Birmingham.

Peter Ruff, BIM Director, Skanska, Costain STRABAG JV, said, “When we were tendering the job we quickly realized that to be able to deliver a job of such magnitude we had to go digital. With traditional methods you wouldn’t actually be able to complete the job. Bentley has helped us in going digital, which is an ongoing process with many people involved.”

Roberto Alberola, BIM manager SCS Railways, remarked: “We need to move information from one place to another and make sure it’s reliable. We do that with a connected data environment (CDE). So the CDE is where all the information is, and is accessible for everyone. Improved data consistency has gone up to about 98% using BI tools to turn that data into information. We are using 5D+ estimation and we are not only costing from the models, we are also deriving carbon.”

Maciej Kindler, BIM Manager SCS Railways, said, “Whatever needs to be built will be designed. Whatever needs to be designed needs to be priced. And whatever is priced will produce carbon. Instead of putting the price in pounds you put the price in CO2 and you come up with two numbers.” Ruff continues, “There is a dynamic link between how a change in the design will change the cost, will change the carbon, a process that before took many months to derive, can now be done in a day.”

Also featured was the work of SMRT Trains Ltd in Singapore, which began operations in 1987 and today runs a 141 kilometer network of four lines and 108 stations. In 2019, SMRT carried an average of 2 million passengers a day. With a population of only 5.7 million, the network provides vital mobility for the residents and visitors to the territory.

SMRT uses mean kilometers between failures (MKBF) as its way of measuring reliability, where a failure is defined as a service delay of more than five minutes. On three out of the four lines, the organization targets 1 million MKBF, the equivalent of travelling over the entire network more than 7,000 times between five-minute delays. Historically, SMRT invested in intensive preventive maintenance, which involved detailed, and as a result, time-consuming planning of corrective maintenance. These tasks required manual referencing of 10’s of millions of samples of data per year relating to track condition, maintenance work, and usage, from multiple systems and silos of data.

Cockerell said, “In order for SMRT to meet the 1 million MKBF target, the organization had to reimagine the way they worked, and as part of its digital transformation, decided to adopt more advanced processes, including what it calls its Predictive Decision Support System (PDSS) based on Bentley’s linear analytics solution.” The solution brings together data from multiple sources, including from disparate legacy maintenance management systems, in a digital twin of its network.

While SMRT recognizes the potential to go much further exists, they have already begun to enjoy benefits that include:

• Increased automation of root-cause analysis, which today takes seconds rather than the hours of data requests and manual plotting previously required.
• Proactive maintenance – cutting the time required for planning tasks from many hours each day to 30 minutes, with the risk of human error mitigated.

Its PDSS also affords SMRT to focus more on critical track defects. The system is available to engineers 24/7, and as a result of its ability to highlight potential degradation in track condition, the organization expects the total length of rail requiring replacement each year to decrease. Cockerell concluded, “It enables the team at SMRT to do the right work, in the right place, at the right time!”

The final asset type Bentley decided to focus on was bridges, which ACSE graded C. Citing that of the 617,000 bridges in the U.S., 42 percent are over 50 years old, and that 7.5 percent were considered to be either structurally deficient or in poor condition. Flesh highlighted that the current backlog of repairs is estimated at $125 billion, commenting that “If repairs continued at the current rate, ignoring the further degradation that would happen over the same period, it would take 50 years to clear the backlog.”

Still in the news is the I-40 bridge over the Mississippi River, in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time of writing, the economic impact of the shutdown resulting from the crack discovered in the bridge’s center span continues to compound daily. However, Flesh said, “As bad as the I-40 failure was, we know when bridges fail the results can be catastrophic.”

On August 14, 2018 in Genoa, Italy, the world witnessed the effects of ageing infrastructure with the most tragic of consequences, when a 210-meter section of the Morandi Bridge over the Polcevera River suddenly collapsed, killing 43 people and leaving hundreds homeless. Flesh said, “That the tragic events of that day dealt a blow to Italy’s proud engineering history but in just 3 months, Italferr – the consulting and project company of Italian Railways, was able to design a replacement bridge to new safety standards on the same footprint of the previous bridge.”

While many different Bentley applications were used on the project, Stefano Casula, BIM Specialist, Italferr S.p.A., chose to highlight SYCNHRO, saying that “It is a very friendly program, which is also simple to learn. In a matter of days you can understand how it works, and it is useful to manage the construction site.”

Daniela Aprea, BIM Manager, Italferr S.p.A. continued, “Because we can create a real-time virtual model connected to the project model, we can analyze all the changes during construction, and by linking a lot of sensors and physical devices, create a connection between two different realities.”

Flesh added that, “The creation of efficient operational methods within a BIM environment, and using a digital twins approach, had enabled Italferr to reduce design costs, accelerate design decisions, increase accuracy, and improve communication among the multidiscipline team. And, on August 3, 2020, some of the pride of the nation returned, with the inauguration of the new Viaduct San Giorgio.”

The bridge section of this presentation concluded with a video produced by Bentley and Microsoft highlighting the work of Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and Collins Engineers. Jennifer Wells, P.E., State Bridge Inspection Engineer, MnDOT, highlighting, “There are over 20,000 bridges in the state of Minnesota, and it is important to inspect each one regularly so that they can be properly maintained over the course of their life.”

With the majority of engineers office based, inspectors found it difficult to relay what they were seeing in the field through pictures and reports, so MnDOT and Collins began working with Bentley with the objective of using technology to improve the inspection workflow.

Barritt Lovelace, P.E., Director of UAS, Artificial Intelligence and Reality Modeling, at Collins Engineers, said, “Microsoft’s HoloLens2 and Azure Remote Rendering leveraged within Bentley’s AssetWise Inspections, was a really unique way of bringing the bridge into the office to do the inspection. We have all this information at our fingertips that we never had before.”

The video concluded with Bentley’s VP of Road and Rail Asset Management Dan Vogen adding that, “Harnessing the power of digital twins has transformed the inspection process. We’re able to see accurately, truly geometrically, the impact of changes (to bridges) over time. Everybody says this is like science fiction, but it is real.”

Other organizations profiled within the presentation included:

• Highways England, which uses maps to navigate its “smart motorway digital twin”, accessing critical asset management information to enable better decision-making across the organization.
• City of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city, which uses Bentley’s technology on its city-scale digital twin to visualize and plan critical new infrastructure.
• Aguas Do Porto, responsible for multiple water systems in Porto, Portugal, uses digital twins to unify data from formerly siloed systems, and city-wide sensors to improve decision making.

Cockerell used the outcomes report from McKinsey’s 2021 Global Infrastructure Initiative summit titled ‘The Project of the Future’, highlighting the need for infrastructure investment to drive different and improved outcomes, decarbonization and sustainability as key project criteria, the need for increased collaboration – including through digital twins – as part of the shift from experience-based to data-driven decisions across the asset lifecycle.

Cockerell and Flesh concluded by saying that we are at a tipping point, adding that the future will include many challenges for the organizations and professionals involved. Bentley users from around the world are some of the most innovative and visionary owners, operators, consultants, contractors, and inspectors you will find today, and they truly are leading the way in terms of delivering different and improved outcomes.

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